nd poor Black-eyed Susan on shore watches the ship as
it dwindles in the sunset.

It dwindles in the West. The night falls darkling over the ocean. They
are gone: but their hearts are at home yet a while. In silence, with a
heart inexpressibly soft and tender, how each man thinks of those he has
left! What a chorus of pitiful prayer rises up to the Father, at sea and
on shore, on that parting night at home by the vacant bedside, where
the wife kneels in tears; round the fire, where the mother and children
together pour out their supplications: or on deck, where the seafarer
looks up to the stars of heaven, as the ship cleaves through the roaring
midnight waters! To-morrow the sun rises upon our common life again, and
we commence our daily task of toil and duty.

George accompanies his brother, and stays a while with him at Portsmouth
whilst they are waiting for a wind. He shakes Mr. Wolfe's hand, looks
at his pale face for the last time, and sees the vessels depart amid the
clangour of bells, and the thunder of cannon from the shore. Next day he
is back at his home, and at that business which is sure one of the most
selfish and absorbing of the world's occupations, to which almost every
man who is thirty years old has served ere this his apprenticeship. He
has a pang of sadness, as he looks in at the lodgings to the little room
which Harry used to occupy, and sees his half-burned papers still in
the grate. In a few minutes he is on his way to Dean Street again,
and whispering by the fitful firelight in the ear of the clinging
sweetheart. She is very happy--oh, so happy! at his return. She is
ashamed of being so. Is it not heartless to be so, when poor Hetty is so
melancholy? Poor little Hetty! Indeed, it is selfish to be glad when she
is in such a sad way. It makes one quite wretched to see her. "Don't,
sir! Well, I ought to be wretched, and it's very, very wicked of me if
I'm not," says Theo; and one can understand her soft-hearted repentance.
What she means by "Don't" who can tell? I have said the room was dark,
and the fire burned fitfully--and "Don't" is no doubt uttered in one
of the dark fits. Enter servants with supper and lights. The family
arrives; the conversation becomes general. The destination of the fleet
is known everywhere now. The force on board is sufficient to beat all
the French in Canada; and, under such an officer as Wolfe, to repair the
blunders and disasters of previous campaigns. He looked dread